The present invention relates in general to parking assist systems for cars and trucks, and, more specifically, to camera-based guidance for parking a vehicle within the bounds of a demarcated parking spot.
Many areas, such as urban areas, shopping malls, and entertainment venues, have limited space for providing parking of motor vehicles. When laying out parking spots (i.e., stalls) within a parking zone or lot (in a process known as striping), the dimensions for straight-in, angle, and parallel parking are selected to make efficient use of the available space while providing sufficient room between vehicles for entry/egress. When particular parked vehicles violate the striping, it causes crowding of vehicles, loss of spots, and annoyance to other drivers. Especially when allocated spot sizes are reduced, it may be difficult to see the painted lines in order to correctly place a vehicle while parking. The problem can be even worse for larger vehicles such a pickup trucks and SUVs.
To assist drivers while parking, many vehicles use backup cameras with dashboard video displays. Nevertheless, drivers still experience difficulties in judging whether the vehicle has been optimally placed within a parking spot. In particular, the field-of-view when the camera is located well above ground level on a large vehicle might sometimes fail to include the parking stripe corresponding to the back edge of the vehicle when the vehicle is very close to it.